50 years later, why are so few people in Charlotte aware that this tragedy ever happened?

Part 5 of 5

Fifty years later, the crash of Eastern Air Lines Flight 212 has been largely forgotten even in Charlotte, where it happened.

A more-recent USAir crash that killed 37 passengers here in 1994 is honored with a significant memorial at the new Charlotte Douglas International Airport Overlook park. But there is no marker anywhere dedicated to the Eastern tragedy of Sept. 11, 1974 — to the 72 people who died, the 10 who survived, the hundreds of families affected or the first responders.

For those with connections to Flight 212, visiting the crash site involves getting permission from private landowners, wandering through some woods in southwest Charlotte, and just hoping they’re in the right place.

On top of that, the select fraternity of grievers are forced to remember the anniversary on a day when most other Americans are observing remembrances for a far better-known air disaster: Exactly 27 years after the Eastern crash in Charlotte, terrorists flew planes into the World Trade Center in New York City, the Pentagon in Washington, D.C., and a field near Shanksville, Pa., killing nearly 3,000 people.

It’s a tragic coincidence that haunts and perplexes those with vivid memories associated with the Flight 212 crash in 1974, including Mark Ethridge, one of the first reporters on the scene that morning.

“September 11th,” he said. “It’s just like a day that’s doomed, you know?”

But, added Claudio Azurmendi, the brother of flight attendant Eugenia Kerth, who was among those who died in the Charlotte crash: “In our minds, it’s the first 9/11.”

And yet Flight 212 is remembered by fewer and fewer people every year.

“A lot of people knew about it when it happened,” said Randy Bradshaw, a firefighter who was one of the first first responders to the scene that morning and had a 32-year career in the Charlotte Fire Department. “But as we’ve gone through the years, these younger kids don’t even know about it. They have no idea about it. And now if you mention a plane crash in 1974 at (Charlotte’s) Douglas airport — it was a DC-9, Flight 212 — everybody looks at you like: Really? They don’t have a clue.”

Today, even for people who live in subdivisions built on top of or adjacent to the site of the crash, Flight 212 is either a distant memory or a story they’ve never known.

“This is my first time hearing about this,” said Nichole Herring, who’s lived for four years with her family in a house in the Olde Whitehall neighborhood, which was built over part of the crash site in the 1980s. “I honestly and truly had no idea.”

Where the plane crashed

Where is the Flight 212 crash site exactly?

The answer is more complicated than you might think, and in some ways is literally buried.

The DC-9 went down just east of Highway 49 (which today turns into South Tryon Street when it gets close to Charlotte) and roughly halfway between the airport and Carowinds. In fact, the pilots had spent some key moments in the cockpit talking about the then-relatively-new amusement park’s 262-foot viewing tower and trying to figure out whether it was in front of or behind them on the mostly fog-covered ground below.

But Charlotte’s sprawl hadn’t extended to that area 50 years ago. When the plane plowed into the ground at close to 200 mph and left a crash path a little longer than three football fields, it came apart in what was all farmland and woods — a rare stroke of good fortune on an unimaginably devastating day, because the rural setting meant no one got killed on the ground.

Now? Charlotte looks dramatically different compared with 1974.

The area where the plane crashed has largely been carved up into subdivisions, with one major exception: the land owned by Rod of God church, located seven miles south of uptown Charlotte, just off South Tryon Street.

The husband-and-wife ministry team of Bishop Larry Allen and Dr. Bonnie Allen bought the 47-acre lot in the late 1980s and eventually would build a church and a school on top of it. They still own 27 acres of that land, including a large swath upon which the plane literally crashed and burned.

The disaster wasn’t revealed to them when they purchased the land, Bonnie Allen said, although she added that she and her husband would have made the deal anyway.

Then “later on, down through the years, people would come out and just ask us if they could go back on the property,” Bonnie Allen said. “And of course, we wanted to know why they were going. And at that point, they were telling us that a plane went down.”

‘I think about it all the time’

In the years and decades that followed the crash of Flight 212, survivors did their best to carry on with normal lives. They had children and jobs. They attended graduations and weddings. The lucky ones were able to live long enough to retire and enjoy their grandchildren.

But the emotional scars left by Sept. 11, 1974 — from survivor’s guilt to post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) — were just as painful as the physical ones.

Before the crash, Charles Weaver faithfully attended services twice a week at Divine Redeemer Catholic Church in Hanahan, S.C., and volunteered regularly to do maintenance work for the congregation. After surviving it, up until his death in 2014 at age 82, the only time he ever went to church was for a funeral or a wedding.

“H e didn’t like talking about it,” said his son Steve Weaver. “When the anniversary day came around, he just sort of went under a shell for a day, and just wanted to get on with life without having to re-live it.”

Darryl Mihalek, son of survivor Frank Mihalek, described his pre-crash father as both a leader and a “man’s man.” Post-crash, Darryl Mihalek said, Frank was often consumed by PTSD and depression. “I would say that he lost his nerve in many ways,” said the younger Mihalek. “I can’t blame him; I don’t pretend to understand what his psyche saw and experienced.”

(In an eerie twist of fate, Frank Mihalek died at the age of 84 — on Sept. 11, 2012.)

And flight attendant Colette Watson, who survived with the fewest injuries, rarely spoke of the crash.

“If it came up in conversation, we would talk about it,” said Bree Watson Johnson, Colette’s daughter, who was born less than a year after the crash and became a schoolteacher in Georgia. “There was never a day when she said, ‘Hey, by the way, I was in a plane crash.’ It was just kind of part of our lives.”

Michael Watson, Colette’s son, asked his mother in 2020 to record her thoughts about the plane crash for posterity. At one point in their 19-minute conversation, she paused as she thought about Flight 212.

“I’ve never gotten over that,” Colette said. “I think about it all the time. All the time.”

And her family understood how much of an impact it made in her life: When she died in early 2023, at age 74, they mentioned it in the third paragraph of her obituary , adding that she continued working for Eastern for a total of 23 years — until the airline shut down for good in 1991.

Did Flight 212 survivors fly again?

While Watson returned to her job as a flight attendant, other survivors’ willingness to fly varied wildly.

Richard Arnold, the most severely injured of the Flight 212 survivors, would spend the next several decades circling the globe, and insists there were plenty of times when he’d travel from his home in Washington state by airplane without thinking at all about the fact that he once very nearly died in one.

Bob Burnham, a naval officer who survived the crash, was a frequent flier as well. So frequent that he earned airline status later in life and routinely was offered first-class upgrades. But he always declined them. Why?

“The reason I’m talking to you today,” said Burnham, now 75 and living in Hilton Head, S.C., “is because I was in the back of the plane.”

Flight 212 survivor Roy Hendrix only flew one time the rest of his life — to see his son and his family while they lived in Corpus Christi, Texas, in 1995.

“I talked him into it,” said Sonny Hendrix, Roy’s son. “He was an absolute basket case when he showed up. … And it wasn’t a good trip because the whole week he was there, all he could think about was the flight home. I felt terrible.”

Meanwhile, survivor John Toohey, who had been flying to Connecticut for his father’s funeral, never got on a commercial airplane again. Years later, he and his wife Peggy drove more than 8,000 miles round trip from their home in New York to Alaska, because he was afraid to fly.

Scott Johnson — who along with Burnham and Arnold is one of the three survivors of Flight 212 who is still alive — has suffered from PTSD for years and also never flies. He has a daughter who does, though, and the now-70-year-old Vermont resident makes a point not to know when she’s in the air.

“Just call me when you get there,” he tells her. “Not before you leave.”

Added Johnson: “I’m not afraid of flying. I’m just afraid of crashing.”

The opposite of ‘Miracle On the Hudson’

Although it’s been 50 years, Martin Shelley still gets choked up when he talks about losing his dad.

“It was so avoidable,” said Shelley, the son of Dr. Bill Shelley, the chief pathologist at Charlotte Memorial Hospital who died from his injuries 29 days after the crash. “‘Miracle On the Hudson,’ it’s like the exact opposite. That guy saves a plane that really should have crashed, and my dad’s plane should have never crashed.”

That guy was Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger, one of the world’s most well-known aviators.

In 2009, Sullenberger heroically guided US Airways Flight 1549 — the so-called “Miracle On the Hudson” flight, which had left New York’s LaGuardia Airport destined for Charlotte — to a water landing on the Hudson River after Canada geese flew into the plane’s engines and disabled them both. All 155 people on board survived, and photos of passengers standing on the wings of the floating plane became iconic.

Those survivors have stayed in touch for the past 15 years and even attend yearly reunions, bound by a near-catastrophic accident that became a feel-good story of survival (and, eventually, a Hollywood movie starring Tom Hanks as Sullenberger).

“The first thing we always do is hug each other and tell each other we love each other,” said Barry Leonard, one of the Flight 1549 passengers who helps organize the reunions.

This past May, he was among dozens of “Miracle On the Hudson” alumni who showed up for the recent grand re-opening of the Sullenberger Aviation Museum in Charlotte. The Airbus plane from that crash is the centerpiece of that museum, marveled at every day by visitors in all its dilapidated glory.

In contrast, the last known piece of Eastern Flight 212 is also in that museum, behind glass, on a mostly overlooked back wall.

It’s one of the plane’s “black boxes” — although the box is actually painted a deep red — and the words “Flight Data Recorder” stand out in bold capital letters. The relic has been part of the museum’s collection since 1998 but only recently went on display, when the museum’s re-opening provided room for it.

There have never been any reunions for the 10 survivors of Flight 212, in part because they didn’t want reminders of it, the outcome having been so wrenching compared with that of Sullenberger’s much-heralded splashdown.

But as the 50-year anniversary of Flight 212 arrives, those who want to mark the solemn occasion in some way are at a loss for where to go or what to do.

Why isn’t there a memorial to Flight 212?

Aside from Dr. Bill Shelley, the only other Flight 212 passenger who lived in Charlotte at the time of the crash was Walt Norem, a beloved UNC Charlotte professor who left behind a wife and three children ages 4, 6 and 8.

A metallurgy expert, he had been in Charleston testifying in a court case and was rushing home on the 7 a.m. flight so he could still make it to campus to teach a 10 a.m. class.

Julia was the Norems’ middle child — “a daddy’s girl,” she said — and today is a doctor of family medicine in Fayetteville with three kids of her own, all boys. The oldest is in training to become a commercial airline pilot, and he recently took a class where they studied the crash that took his grandfather’s life and how it helped make all flights safer due to the “sterile cockpit” rule instituted in 1981.

Then in August, Julia Norem and another of her sons rode out to the new Airport Overlook park during a visit to Charlotte. Despite the horror of Flight 212, she still has some fond memories of the place; in the early 1970s, her dad would sometimes give their mom a break and take her and her siblings to the airport on Sunday afternoons to watch the planes take off and land.

When Norem got to the new park a few weeks ago, she saw the memorial to the 1994 USAir crash that killed 37 people. She started looking around for a mention of Flight 212 and the 72 people who lost their lives as a result of the 1974 crash.

Her son even wondered aloud to her: “Where’s the memorial to your dad’s crash?”

But there isn’t one.

“I was actually,” Norem said, “really mad.”

According to a Charlotte airport spokesperson, part of the reason there’s a memorial for 1994’s Flight 1016 at the Airport Overlook park and not 1974’s Flight 212 is simply this:

The area where the latter crash happened “is not airport property.”

“The 1994 crash occurred very close to the current Overlook location on airport property and the families had created a small memorial at the site,” the spokesperson said. “During construction of the Airport Overlook, a permanent memorial near the site was created.”

Of course, a memorial site for Flight 212 wouldn’t have to be on Rod of God’s private property. It could be anywhere in Charlotte. To this point, though, there has been no local groundswell of support for it.

Still, over the years, several family members of people who were aboard Flight 212 have gone into the woods behind Rod of God church, looking for any number of things. A scrap of the plane. Answers. Peace.

Sonny Hendrix — whose father Roy survived Flight 212 and then lived 48 more years — is one of those.

“Six or seven years ago, we parked and walked around,” Hendrix said. “I couldn’t find anything, you know, which kind of bothered me. … I think there should be some sort of rock out there. A memorial. Something. A brass plaque. There’s nothing.”

Meanwhile, airplanes continue to pass over those woods every day, often with their landing gear down and only about 900 feet above the ground as they get ready to touch down at Charlotte’s airport, according to Sonny Hendrix.

And he would know.

In the years after his father Roy Hendrix survived Flight 212, Sonny followed in his footsteps into the Navy, became a pilot himself, and since leaving the military has been flying for American Airlines since 1992. He has flown airplanes over the site dozens of times as he prepares for landing.

“It’s always a little emotional,” Sonny Hendrix said, “when I fly that approach.”

‘I’m doing the right thing’

September 11th is a complicated emotional day for Louie Pinheiro.

A 17-year-old machine repairman for the Navy at the time of the crash, Pinheiro — who was supposed to be on Flight 212, but at the last minute changed his plans — lost his older brother John on that plane in 1974. So 9/11 always makes Louie think of John, that day, that decision and that tragedy.

But the date is a happy one for him, too: On Sept. 11, 1986, Louie Pinheiro’s daughter Victoria was born.

In the years after John died, Louie left the Navy and went on to apprentice as a plumber. Eventually, he became the owner of a small plumbing company in their home state of Massachusetts. He likes to think John would have been proud of him.

Louie is semi-retired now, and has visited the Flight 212 crash site behind Rod of God Ministries in Charlotte four times in recent years. Each time, it has made him feel closer to his brother and helped bring some closure to his life.

“I want to keep it fresh in my mind,” he said, wiping back tears. “It’s hard for me, as you can tell. But I also get some satisfaction out of going there. It makes me feel good. Like I’m doing the right thing.”

Two Fridays ago, with permission from Rod of God’s owners, Pinheiro once again walked into the woods behind the church, holding a bouquet of flowers decorated with two American flags and wearing a hat that read “USS Yellowstone” — which was the Navy ship he and his brother were stationed on in 1974.

After Pinheiro placed the flowers at the base of a small ironwood tree, he stepped back, clasped his hands in front of him and thought about not just his brother’s life, but all those that were lost in Charlotte’s worst air disaster.

Pinheiro blinked back tears. His wife of 47 years, Lena, stood a few yards away to give him some space.

Once more, Pinheiro looked around for signs of the plane amid the Eastern red cedars and loblolly pines. Once more, he didn’t find any. So, once more, he wasn’t quite sure where to set up his makeshift tribute memorial.

But in a larger sense, Pinheiro felt — as he has on every visit — that he was in the right place.

Somewhere in those woods underneath him were the ruins of Flight 212, forgotten by nearly everyone else, buried deep in the red clay.

Epilogue

Of the 10 original survivors of the Flight 212 plane crash in Charlotte on Sept. 11, 1974, three are still alive. Here’s what happened to all 10 of them, as well as a full list of the 72 people who died in the crash.

How we reported this story

The Charlotte Observer series “9/11/74,” detailing the plane crash of Eastern Flight 212 in Charlotte and its aftermath, was reported and written by Scott Fowler and Théoden Janes.

Current photographs are by visual journalist Jeff Siner, while historical photographs mostly come from former Charlotte Observer photographer Don Sturkey. Videos are by Siner and Diamond Vences. Gavin Off contributed research. Taylor Batten and The' Pham were the series editors. This series is based primarily on dozens of new interviews conducted by The Observer with all the remaining survivors and their families, families of victims, crash investigators, aviation experts and first responders.

A trove of recently discovered and previously unreported transcribed interviews with the plane crash survivors — conducted by the National Transportation Safety Board in 1974 only a few days after the incident — was also relied upon for verification. In those interviews, survivors recounted in detail what they were thinking during the crash and its aftermath.

Janes and Fowler also pored over thousands of documents related to the crash; found additional material through library visits, the 1977 book “Final Approach” and FOIA requests; and visited Charlotte’s Sullenberger Aviation Museum and the crash site.

On Wednesday, Sept. 18, The Charlotte Observer will host free events at 11:30 a.m. and at 7:00 p.m. at Charlotte’s Independent Picture House that will include a screening of “9/11/74,” The Observer’s 30-minute documentary about the crash of Eastern Flight 212. Following the screening, panel discussions about the series will feature plane crash survivors, family members, reporters Scott Fowler and Théoden Janes, and others. Tickets are free, but RSVPs are required. Details here .

Additional Credits

Sohail Al-Jamea | Graphics

Rachel Handley | Illustrations & Design

David Newcomb | Development & Design